Schoolhouse Review Crew: Memoria Press

Memoria Press   is a publishing company that produces easy to use classical Christian education materials for private schools and homeschools.  Recently we had an opportunity to use and review Prima Latina, An Introduction to Christian Latin Teacher Manual, Student Book, Pronunciation CD, Flashcards, and Instructional DVD.





Prima Latina is a preparation course for Latin Christina.  It was written for children in grades 1-4 who are good readers, but still becoming familiar with English grammar.  It was designed to be able to be taught by teachers with no background in Latin.  Students will learn important English and Latin grammar concepts, vocabulary, prayers, sayings, hymns, and constellations.

The text contains:

• 25 different lessons including grammar designed to complete one lesson per week
• 5 vocabulary words per lesson along with English derivatives
• practical Latin phrase for each lesson
• one line of prayer for each lesson with entire prayer being completed after 5 lessons
• constant review with a test taken after every 5 lessons to ensure mastery

The Student Goals for Prima Latina are to:

• Learn the basic Latin alphabet and pronunciation of vowels and consonants sounds.
• Pronounce, spell, and translate 125 Latin words.
• Learn 25 practical Latin sayings and 4 complete prayers
• Learn numbers 1 to 10
• Learn the names of popular constellations
• Learn and understand what a derivative is

You can view the Table of Contents here.

See a sample lesson here.

View a sample of the Teacher's Manual here.


The paperback Teacher's Manual ($14) contains the entire student text (with answers), a vocabulary appendix, teaching guidelines, tests, and test keys.

The paperback Student Book ($14) is a consumable workbook.  It contains the Practical Latin saying, the concept being taught, vocabulary, Latin Prayers, and derivatives for each lesson.   It also contains the written exercises for each lesson.  Every lesson has review questions, questions about the new concept that was learned, words to translate, a Speaking Latin section, a place to write vocabulary words and their meanings, and a fun practice exercise.

The Pronunciation CD ($4.95) includes pronunciation direction for each lesson and four hymns from Lingua Angelica.  The student workbook tells you which track to listen to in the Speaking Latin section.  Your child can listen to the words and then follow the directions to speak them themselves.

Latin Christina I-Prima Latina Flashcards ($14.95)  are simple flashcards with black ink and printed on white cardstock.  The front of the cards contain the word and its derivative and the back shows the meaning and part of speech.  The flashcard set is the one that is used for Latin Christina, but every word that is learned in Prima Latina is contained in the set

The Instructional DVDs ($45) contain 9 hours of instruction by Leigh Lowe on 3 discs.  Each of the lessons in the book is gone over step by step on the DVD.  The DVD shows the teacher teaching while allowing the student to see and hear what is being taught in the lesson.   You can view a sample lesson on this page (scroll down to DVD section.)

The Prima Latina complete set can be purchased for $90.90.

I used Prima Latina mostly with my 1st and 3rd graders, but my K and Pre-K listened in to the DVDs.  The lessons are set up so you can complete one lesson per week.  You could divide the lesson up to complete over the course of a week, but I thought doing our Latin lesson once a week was perfect for us!  Instead of trying to carve out time everyday to work on it, I just set aside a block of time every Wednesday for us to work on Latin.  First we viewed the Instructional DVD.  The lessons lasted around 20 minutes.  Then we did each of the sections in the student workbook together.  We did spend some time during the week using flashcards for reinforcement.

I was excited to have an opportunity for my younger children to learn Latin!  My older two are already using a Latin program but it is too advanced for little ones.  I have a little bit of Latin in my background, but even if you know nothing about Latin at all, you can use Prima Latina with your children.  The books have a very clean layout with nothing distracting on the pages.  The program is very easy to use, all you have to do is open the book and go.  While using this Latin program, the children are learning (or reinforcing) English grammar.  I love the inclusion of the prayers and the lessons on the constellations.


While you do not have to have the DVDs to use this program, it is a great resource.  With the DVD, children that can read and write well can use Prima Latina on their own.  The DVD goes through the lesson step by step.  After watching the video, students can complete the workbook exercises.  Young children who are not reading or writing yet can also learn Latin with these DVDs.  My 6 and 4 year olds watched the DVD with us and learned Latin vocabulary.  The instructor is very enthusiastic and has a great presence for young children.  My 9 year old said that he thought he was too old for the DVD because she is a teacher for "little kids."  He thought things like repeating the words and racing to see how fast you could say the sounds were "babyish."

I also wanted to mention that the DVDs and the CD uses Christian (Ecclesiastical) pronunciation rather than Classical pronunciation because that is what you would hear if you are in a church that uses Latin.  This bothered my older children because they are used to hearing the Classical pronunciation.  How you pronounce Latin is really up to you, but young children may get confused if they hear it two different ways.

Members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew reviewed Prima Latina and Geography I.  To see what my Crew Mates had to say, click on the banner below.

The Discovery Museum and Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center

Chelsea needed to be dropped off at the 4 H Center in Little Rock.  It is a LONG drive to Little Rock, and we all had to load up to take her, so I thought it would be fun if we went to The Discovery Museum while we there.  We had never been there before, and because we have passes to MASM our admission was free.

The hardest part for me was finding parking.  When you drive a 15 passenger van, you just can't park it anywhere!  Downtown Little Rock has a few free parking areas, but the ones closest to the museum were already full, so we parked in a parking garage.  It cost $1.50 per hour to park.  I do not like parking garages, but luckily found a spot that I could get the van in and out of easily.

The Discovery Museum was down the road and across the street.  It has a lot of fun hands on exhibits for children.  The children had a wonderful time!  All of the exhibits were different than the ones they are used to at MASM so everything was new and exciting!  There were four main sections.

Upstairs there was a large room, Discovery Hall, with several hands on discovery exhibits.

Here are some of the pictures I took in there.

The next area, Amazing You, had exhibits that were all about the human body.

While I had the boys in that area, Chelsea took the girls into the special area, Room to Grow, for kids 6 and under.  It was really cool!  They had lots of hands on activities for little ones.  There was a story corner, magnets, blocks, an area to dig in, a stage with costumes to dress up in, monkey bars, a rock climb, playhouse, pirate ship, and more.  Plus they even had a room for nursing mothers in there.  Lily and Emelia loved it!

 Chelsea took a few pictures on her phone, but I don't have those here.  I did get one picture when I went to get them so we cold go downstairs.

Downstairs in , Earth Journeys there were more fun things to do!  There were fun hands on exhibits, animals to look at, and a room with a tornado simulation (loud and scary!  not for young children.)

The Tinkering Studio (where you can build special things) is only open in the afternoon so we did not get to go in there.

We spent about 2 hours at the Discovery Museum.  I would not make the drive just to go there, but if we have to be in Little Rock for something else, we will definitely go again!  The children wanted to go back today!!

The Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center is right next door.  The admission is free.  My children love all of the programs and activities we have done through Arkansas State Parks and I knew they would want to go in.  It was a neat little place.  The children were impressed, and the price was right :) I was glad we stopped in.  If you are visiting downtown Little Rock, it is definitely worth visiting.

Schoolhouse Review Crew: Birdcage Press

Wanda O'Reilly, publisher of Birdcage Press, began creating games to make learning fun for her children.  They began publishing their games in 2000.  Their games have won numerous awards and this year they"are proud to offer a range of games and other products that bring history, art and nature alive for the whole family."  As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I was thrilled to have an opportunity to use and review Wild Cards: Baby Animals Around the World.



Wild Cards: Baby Animals Around the world is recommended for ages 6 and up.  The set comes with 36 beautiful playing cards with animal facts on each card plus a 28 page companion fact book.  Directions for playing 3 card games: Silly Sloth (played like Old Maid), Animal Memory, and Go Fish For Baby Animals are included in the companion fact book.  The cards are divided into  6 different regions with 3 animals in each region (2 cards of each animal)

Africa- Cheetah, African Elephant, Giraffe

Asia-Giant Panda, Orangutan, Tiger

Australia-Emu, Kangaroo, Koala

North America-Grizzly Bear, White-tailed Deer, Wolf

South America- Capybara, Sloth, Squirrel Monkey

Polar Regions-Emperor Penguin, Harbor Seal, Polar Bear

You can purchase Wild Cards: Baby Animals Around the World for $10.95 here.  Birdcage Press has several other Animal, Art, and History games available.  Click here to see all of their available games.

I have been using Wild Cards: Baby Animals Around the World with my 4,6,7, and 9 year olds. It is so much more than a card game!  They are a fun and educational learning tool.  The images are spectacular!  The facts included on each card are fun and interesting.  Even though there are two cards for each animal, each card contains different interesting facts about the animal.  For example, on the orangutan cards one card has facts about the arms and legs of the orangutan and the other has facts about gestation time of baby orangutans.  Each of the geographical regions are color coded and numbered which makes finding the other animals in the region very easy.  At the bottom of each card it lists the other two animals in that region.

The cards are a little larger than "regular" playing cards.  So the pictures and the lettering are good sizes and easy on the eyes.  The cards are very sturdy, although I am sure they could bend and tare if one tried hard enough!  We kept these cards out of Emelia's hands as she is only two and I didn't want her to lose or do any damage to the cards.

We started off with one geographical region at a time.  First we located that region on the map.  Then we read the companion guide for the cards in that area. Next we played memory match with that set of cards, going over the fun facts about the animal as we matched them.  The children even acted out some of the animals as we learned the facts, like moving very slow like a sloth.  The memory game was pretty easy the first day with only 6 cards to work with, but each time we took the cards out, we covered a new geographical region and added more cards to the game.  Unless I am playing with Lily(4).  Then I only use 18 cards at a time, although I am not sure why.  She wins every time!

What a fun way to learn geography and baby animals!  My children loved the pictures on the cards and playing the memory match game (there are other games you can play as well but that was their favorite.)  I loved the sturdy box the cards came with as well.  It helps keep the cards safe from baby sister and makes them very easy to store and transport.  I also liked that the cards can be used by the children together, or a parent can play with a child, or your child can even play by themselves.

I would highly recommend Wild Cards: Baby Animals Around the World!

Member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew reviewed several items from Birdcage Press.  To see what my Crew Mates had to say click on the banner below.